Saturday 18th March 3pm, Sunderland host Burnley at the Stadium of Light Last time out Sunderland lost 2-0 at home to Manchester City while Burnley lost 2-1 at Liverpool. The run-in starts here for Sunderland, with Burnley's visit on Saturday the start of a series of fixtures that will go a long way towards determining the Black Cats' fate. Sunderland have lost twice against Burnley already this season, once in the league and once in the FA cup, but both of those defeats came at the Clarets' Turf Moor stronghold. The sides fought out a draw in the cup on Wearside in January, and Sunderland must take advantage of the fact that Burnley are the worst travellers in the Premier League – Sean Dyche's side have not won a league game on the road, and have picked up only two points from 14 away games. The Black Cats will have taken a modicum of comfort from their last outing against Manchester City, when they gave one of the top flight's high-fliers a real scare before eventually slipping to defeat. But Sunderland are still six points adrift of safety and home games such as this one will have to be converted into wins if they are to close that gap and give themselves a genuine chance of survival. David Moyes: Great news for Jermain Defoe and good news for SAFC. It shows that if you play here you can be an England international." "To get back in after so long out shows his professionalism and desire, but above all else Jermain scores goals." "We need his goals and we need more goals, so we hope he gets a boost from it. It's a great achievement." "It's a really important game but there are other important games to come. Getting three points would be a big boost for us." " Stadium of Light support has always been important. We need to play well, get the three points and look ahead." Sean Dyche: "A lot of performances away from home were way off the mark earlier in the season, but that's not been the case in the main recently. "The performance against Liverpool was a marker, the sight of Liverpool kicking it in the corners and wasting time, and bringing Lucas on for a striker, which you don't see them do often, was a backhanded mark of respect. "If we keep delivering performances and get on top of the fine details, we're not a million miles away." Burnley are unbeaten in three matches against Sunderland in all competitions this season. Burnley's PL record in March reads W1 D1 L8, giving them the worst points-per-match ratio in this month than any other side in the competition's history (0.40). Lawro's Prediction: 1:2 Merson's Prediction: 1:2 Referee: Robert Madley Assistants: P Kirkup, M Perry Fourth official: M Jones Team Lineups: Sunderland Subs from Mannone, Manquillo, Djilobodji, Rodwell, Love, Honeyman, Khazri Injured Anichebe (Knee Apr), Cattermole (Achilles Apr), Kirchhoff (Apr/May) Pienaar (Calf, Mar), Watmore (Knee, Oct), McNair (Knee, Aug) Suspended None Form LDWLLL Leading scorer Defoe 14 Burnley Expected team Heaton,Lowton,Keane,Mee,Ward,Barton,Hendrick,Boyd,Arfield,Barnes,Gray Subs Pope,Robinson,Darikwar,Flanagan,Tarkowski,Defour,Vokes Injured Gudmundsson, Marney (both knee) Suspended None Form WLDDLL Leading scorer Andre Gray 8 Key Men: Jermain Defoe please log in to view this image Jermain Defoe has scored in his last two Premier League appearances against Burnley. Andre Gray please log in to view this image Andre Gray became the first Burnley player to score a PL hat-trick in the 4-1 reverse win in December. Betting: Sunderland 6/4 Burnley 15/8 Draw 9/4 My two pence... This is a crucial fixture with lots of people seeing this as a must win game for Sunderland, a defeat or even a draw could leave us with a big gap to make up and games running out fast. I am going for a 1-0 home win more out of hope and blind faith. Ha'way the lads
Good match day thread, but I suspect that we'll probably start with 11 players Really important game so you'd hope that our traditional late season miracle starts tomorrow, though I'm finding it hard to confident about us at all at the moment, I'll predict a horrible scrappy game that ends in a draw.
Regarding the betting why didnt they just say 2/1? Or am I being a thicko here? 14 different scores at the SoL this season. 2-0 or 3-1 looking good to carry that on.
Thanks RTB, great thread. Really looking forward to this game, taking me daughter to her first match and she's beyond excited! Sure it'll wear off when the reality hits in a few games time, but lovely to see in the meantime
Great stuff - if we win she will have to go to all the games The U23's were playing at the colliery welfare tonight - they lost 1-0 though.
Good ground that, I'm exiled in Scotland now RTB so wasn't an option although it would be ideal. Basically I had to get her to a Sunderland match before her grandad got her to Hearts, he's gutted! She'll probably end up supporting both to be fair which is more suffering than anyone deserves poor thing
Yeah - we used to jump over the fence and have a kick around when we were nippers. I did play a proper game there against Bog Row juniors
Good times playing junior football. We used to get told to we were only allowed to score 4 in 1st half and 3 in second against some of the tiny schools. Remember the absolute conflict on our striker's face when we were 7-0 up in such a game and he won a penalty. Terrible acting to put it wide as well haha but saved himself a bollocking
Keeps picking januzi heaven knows why ,up until now he has been pretty poor and very weak imo,time for a change.
A bit of brekkie.... then heading off I know we like a good moan about our beloved SAFC.... but I love matchdays!!!!! Is today the day when it all comes together?? @hettonist I hope your daughter loves her day
I'd like to see ----------------------Pickford----------------------- Jones--------Kone----Djilobodji------Oviedo ------------------Ndong--Denayer--------------- Januzaj-------------Khazri----------------Borini --------------------------Defoe----------------------- But we'll get a dour Dave selection with Oshea Gibson and Larsson with Khazri nowhere to be seen
Another brilliant match day post mate. For me, our season starts or ends today, we win and we use it as a springboard, we lose and I reckon we're as good as down.
Bollocks. Apart from not winning away this season, just saw that Burnley haven't won at ours since 1969. Another fiver on the away win then